SMU's DeGolyer Library presents rare Civil War photographs

'New Perspectives from the Robin Stanford Collection' through March 15, 2013

From the Exhibit

Pontoon Bridge over Rio Grande River at Brownsville.ca. 1866, Louis de Planque (attributed) Robin Stanford Collection.
View facing Levee Street in Brownsville during Federal occupation. African American soldier from 114th U.S. Colored Troops in the foreground.

February 11, 2013

DALLAS (SMU) – A new exhibit at SMU’s DeGolyer Library features rare Civil War images of African American slave life, Southern battlefield scenes and camp life for Union and Confederate soldiers.

“The Civil War in Photographs: New Perspectives from the Robin Stanford Collection,” (through March 15, 2013) represents the first time the more than 300 photographs and stereoscope views have been exhibited.

Robin Stanford of Houston has spent the last 40 years assembling the collection. Its strengths include pre-war and wartime Southern views by local photographers and views by northern photographers who documented Union-occupied areas of the South. Her collection also includes images featuring the daily life of soldiers at mealtime, playing cards and writing letters. Extremely rare Texas Civil War images also are included.

Exhibit highlights include:

Pre-war slave life with photographs of slave quarters, workshops and plantation life.

Images of a damaged Ft. Sumter, South Carolina, after Union troops surrendered and evacuated in 1861.

Battlegrounds and scenes rarely photographed, particularly in Southern locations such as Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

African American soldiers and regiments.

Union soldiers in Brownsville, Texas, guarding the U.S. border.

The DeGolyer Library exhibit is free and open to the public. Library hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. It is locaated at 6404 Hyer Lane on the SMU Campus.

A 95-page catalog of the exhibit, The Civil War in Photographs: New Perspectives from the Robin Stanford Collection, by exhibit curator Anne E. Peterson is available for $20.

Interior Sumter the day after General Anderson left Charleston
April 14, 1861. Osborn & Durbec's Southern Stereoscopic Depot. Photos by Osborn & Durbec were among the first views of the war and by Confederate photographers. Robin Stanford Collection.

Abraham Lincoln's Catafalque
George Stacy, ca. 1865. An estimated 75,000 New Yorkers walked with Lincoln's funeral cortege and perhaps ten times that many watched from sidewalks and rooftops. Robin Stanford Collection.